Chapter V · THE MAJOR'S STORY CONCLUDED.

"My limbs were stiff and sore, for I was still bound to the cannon, which was a nine-pounder fieldpiece.

"The chief, Ali Khan, whose whim it was to keep me prisoner instead of cutting me to pieces, was an outlaw now; several regiments of Gough's army, both infantry and cavalry were sent into the country of the Mahrattas at the expense of the Gwalior Government, to enforce peace and order; so he, with his followers, were compelled to lurk among the mountains in the north-west of Scinde.

"There were times when I repined bitterly, and thought that but for Riversdale's presence in front of the village, when he ought to have been in the rear of the attacking column looking after the wounded, I should not have made that desperate onslaught to rescue him, and so been taken myself!

"Alas! you see that my story, unlike most others, begins with a happy marriage instead of ending with it, as most novels do, and all comedies at the fall of the curtain.

"Like most, if not nearly all the Mahratta troops, the followers of Ali Khan were cavalry, hardy and ferocious fellows. Their only arms were swords, spears, and matchlocks, like those used in the wars of Cromwell; their only equipage, blankets and horse-cloths. With these slight incumbrances they easily rode fifty miles a day, feeding their horses on whatever they would eat; whether it was the ripe corn growing in the fields or the dry thatched roofs of a village, was all the same to the Mahrattas of Ali Khan, who was a stern and unyielding warrior, vain of real or supposed descent from Sevajee, the founder of the old Mahratta empire.

"En route he carried off several children, and I now learned for the first time that his people were fond of possessing slaves, and hence their capture of me.

"Over miles upon miles of a flat country covered with wild bushes, and many more of desert sand, they fled from Maharajpore, till we entered upon a district studded by almost impervious thickets and tamarisk shrubs which also entwine their branches; and beyond this desolate region we reached the mountains that look down on Western Scinde, where they halted, encamped, and lurked for several weeks to rest and heal their wounds, subsisting the while by forays and the plunder they carried off in their march. Sometimes All Khan made the neighbourhood too hot to hold him; and then, by a swift movement, he would favour other regions, perhaps in Beloochistan, with a short residence; but he generally preferred to hover in the hills to the north of Tattah, which are barren and totally uninhabited, so that we were often compelled to plunder for food, almost to the gates of Brahminabad, its ancient capital.

"Chained to that accursed gun, my sole sleeping-place being between its wheels at night, exposed to the dews with only a horse-rug to cover me (while the Mahrattas lived in tents), exposed to the risks of being helplessly strangled by Thugs, devoured by tigers or jackals, or being bitten by serpents such as the terrible Braminee cobra, stung by insects all day, and having the disgusting green bugs among my matted locks and beard by night—chained to the gun, I say, like Ixion on his wheel in the Infernal Regions, I thought—oh, how deeply and desperately—of her I loved, of my home, of free and pleasant England, far, far away; of Stoketon Moat and Cheshire with all its shady woods, its lakes and meres; its parks of emerald green, its shady lanes and hedgerows; of the broad Mersey winding to the sea; of budding spring and glorious summer, brown autumn, with its golden harvest fields and crisp foliage, and jolly winter, with its snow on hill and wold, its green bays and scarlet berries in church-porch and in hall.

"Changes like these I had none!

"It was a period of horror, weariness, and despair—a despair that was black and hopeless, and daily, with a sickened heart, I surveyed the arid plains on one hand and the barren mountains of Tattah on the other, hoping against hope for some rescue or relief, and in this slavery more than a year passed away, without an event save an occasional buffalo hunt, when hides were wanted for shields or harness, (as the Mahrattas cared not for the beef), or an occasional kutha, a popular amusement of the tribe, when recitations and songs are given by professional musicians or story-tellers; and frequently I heard them sing of the battle of Maharajpore, and how the great Sahib-log, Ellenborough Bahadour, had been amid the thickest of the conflict, mounted on a snow-white elephant, in the howdah of which I had certainly seen his lordship freely exposing himself to the risks of shot and shell.

"My sabre wound had been allowed to heal as Nature chose, and after hemorrhage ceased it closed rapidly; but unluckily for myself, by the skilful and tender manner in which I bound up a bayonet-stab received by Ali Khan, the Mahrattas conceived that I was a doctor, and hence kept me closely secured to the gun, to frustrate any attempt to escape.

"Isabel's letter was found upon my person, and conceived to be some great medical secret; the ink lines were carefully washed off the paper, and the dilution swallowed on speculation by Ali Khan and his favourite wife; but I had many cures to perform, many cuts and stabs and bullet-holes to probe and patch and bind, with the terror of death hanging over me if I failed, or a patient fevered or died; but luckily for me the Mahrattas were all Hindus, extremely temperate in what they ate or drank, so I was pretty successful in my practice, and earned the goodwill of all, particularly that of the women of the tribe, who were as hardy and as muscular as the men, and regularly shared every labour with them save that of fighting; but it was long before I succeeded in convincing them that I was not a doctor, and by that time I was so weary of existence, as to care little whether they shot me, to save further feeding or trouble.

"Released but at rare intervals, and even then always closely watched, I had been five years chained to the gun, when it was abandoned in a deep nullah as a useless incumbrance. I was then worn to bone and brawn; but I had lost all heart and hope. Heaven knows how I had been fed, for I had been treated often like a dog—a creature of the lowest caste.

"Offers of ransom I had often made in vain; and chance of rescue I had none. Neither had I any prospect of escape. I was without horse, or arms, or money, or even a knowledge of where I was, so devious had been our wanderings; and at times I could not say with certainty whether we were on the confines of Beloochistan, or among the mountains of Kelat.

"The Hindu religion admits of no proselytes, so I was never troubled with any attempts to convert me; the institutes of Menou, compiled 1200 B.C., had quite settled all that, so that I was safer than if in the hands of Mohammedans, who might have compelled me to choose between the turban and the bowstring.

"And so a sixth year passed away!

"Was my Isabel living or dead? Had she perished of a broken heart? I tried to remember of a widow that had done so, but failed. Was our little child living now? If so he should be verging on seven years old. Seven years old—oh my God! I would press my hands over my eyes and strive to portray him, for I knew that the child must grow, and change with his growth; but I could only picture him as I had seen him last, nestling in his mother's bosom.

"Then I would think with a shudder, Alas! how long may he have been in his little grave?

"Ever present were such thoughts as these; of Isabel and the baby in 'the woollen bootikins' which had been worked for it, as her last and only letter told, by Katie—little Katie, whom I remembered with her masses of golden hair; the rippling locks of which would neither keep in knot or net, but hung like an aureole, a shining glory round her smiling face.

"Kate would be four-and-twenty now, and most likely herself a mother.

"I knew that I must long, long since have been gazetted out of the service; numbered with the lost, the missing, or the dead; that another must have filled my rank and place in the regiment, where by that time my very name must be forgotten!

"And so I grieved at the thought of these things, till my heart grew sick with sorrow and grieving. Oh, how true it is, that 'the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joys.'

"Times there were when I longed for death, for, as Dryden says in his 'Don Sebastian,' I felt keenly but bitterly that 'Death is to man in misery, a sleep;' but in that sleep, I should have no dreams of Isabel or home.

"One day—I shall never, never forget it—these, and such sad and bitter thoughts as these, were maddening me while I was grooming the horses of Ali Khan, beautiful animals of the Candahar and Thibet breeds, and when my task was over I sat down beside a tamarisk tree, and actually gave way to tears. We were then encamped, as I knew, not far from the Indus, in a place where a grove of peepul trees grew round a little lake beside a Hindu temple of white marble, the bronze idols in which the Mahratta women were wont to fan for hours, after smearing them with ointments, butter, and ghee.

"'The Sahib-log (white gentleman) is always sad?' said a voice close by me; and on looking up I saw Ali Khan, with his shield of buffalo hide slung on his back, and leaning on his long Kelat spear, while his dark gleaming eyes observed me with something of wonder and much of contempt.

"'I have thoughts, O Khan, that make me sad,' said I, rising and crossing my hands upon my breast.

"'Are you not kindly used among us?' he asked.

"'I have certainly eaten your salt and bread; but both have been watered by the tears of misery.'

"'Why?'

"'I have a wife and child——'

"'I have several wives and children too; yet were I a captive, would they cost me a tear? No. I am a man! Go—our lives are in the hands of Bramah—our doom in the hands of Kali—even yours, a creature without caste or future.'

"And turning away with stolidity and scorn, he mounted the horse I had just saddled for him, and with his long tasselled spear in his hand, rode off on a scouting expedition—for the appearance of some Bombay cavalry in our vicinity had rendered him somewhat uneasy.

"He had scarcely left me, when I heard some shrill cries from the women of his followers who were dipping and bleaching their linen dresses in the little lake beside the peepul grove. A child had fallen into it from a rock where he had been gathering flowers; it was the deepest part of the lake, and the little creature rose twice and sank again before I stirred myself.

"'What is it to me?' thought I bitterly; 'would that every Mahratta in the land were in the same perilous predicament.'

"A third time the boy rose and wildly threw up his little brown hands and arms, while his half-shriek came over the water as he vanished again. At that moment a thought of my own child flashed upon my mind, and plunging in, I dived successfully, saved and brought the little Mahratta cub to dry land; but barely in time, for some hours elapsed before I succeeded in perfectly restoring him to life and consciousness, and ere I became aware that it was Sevajee, the favourite child of Ali Khan, I had rescued from a watery grave!

"With all his assumed stolidity and apparent sternness of heart, the Mahratta chief was melted towards me now, and in a burst of gratitude he gave me my liberty!

"'Go,' said he; 'here are a swift horse, good arms, my own, and a bag of rupees. You are free to join your people. Thirty miles from this, near a temple of Seva, on the left bank of the Indus, you will find them. Go—and Brahma, Kali, and Vishnu be your guides, and may their arms overshadow you, even as those of the blessed banian tree overshadow the earth!'

"This was the best and holiest wish a Hindu could give me, as they pay divine honours to this enormous tree.

"You may imagine that I was not long in availing myself of the permission so suddenly given.

"Like one in a dream, one who had suddenly shaken off a long nightmare that has been protracted to the verge of madness, I rode all that afternoon at a breathless pace, not without fears that Ali Khan might change his mind, or my horse, arms, and rupees should excite the cupidity of some of his people who might follow me; and ere nightfall I found myself in a little flying camp formed by a battalion of the Queen's troops (the 'old Springers'), and a squadron of the 1st Bombay Lancers, whose French grey uniforms, faced with white, I hailed with a shout of joy as I rode towards their videttes.

"On that day I had been exactly six years and four months a prisoner!

"On hearing my story, the officers treated me with every kindness and commiseration, and while the Lancers departed on a vain search for Ali Khan and his people, no time was lost in having me transmitted to Bombay.

"I had been returned among the killed at the battle of Maharajpore, and so circumstantial were the details of my having been cut down and dreadfully mangled by the Mahratta swordsmen, that I had some trouble in proving my own identity.

"The years of my captivity had seen many changes, and thus I, who had gone out by the Rangoon, Indiaman, round the Cape, and up the Arabian Sea, came home by the overland route, which was just being got into working order, but we crossed the desert with a caravan. So eager was I, that the six weeks of the homeward journey, with its ever-changing scenes, seemed interminable; and telegraph, or Indian cable, there were none. I reached London well nigh destitute; but burning with impatience for news of Isabel and home, having counted more than ever the hours since I was a free man.

"I attended the Commander-in-Chief's levee at the Horse Guards, where my weird and wild, or hunted aspect, excited considerable speculation among the fashionably-dressed loungers in the ante-room. He promised to look after me promptly; but 'the Liberals were in office,' as he told me, with a peculiar and inexplicable smile: so my back pay was refused on the plea that 'the country had lost my services for six years and four months;' my progressive rank also was declined, so that I, who had been well up among the subalterns of my own corps at the battle of Maharajpore, was now, when gazetted anew, placed at the foot of twenty-four lieutenants of the Royal Fusileers.

"My wife! They could tell me nothing about her. 'Why?' I asked passionately.

"'Because my rank and services did not entitle her to a pension;' so I turned on my heel with mutiny in my heart, and on my lips a bitter malison on 'the Liberals' who were in office.

"On my aunt, Lady Singleton, depended all my hopes now; so I set out for Stoketon by the first train from London.

"Already in the whirl of events my past period of love, and my marriage with Isabel Vane, had begun to seem but a tiny patch in the chequered web of my existence; but it was a spot so bright and fair, so pure and happy, that I clung to the memory of it, as being well worth ten times all my other years together.

"My heart and soul yearned for her, and as the train bounded along the London and North-Western line my mind went back to the day when we set out from Stoketon on our joyous wedding trip to Wales, and the affectionate energy with which she insisted we were married 'for love and for life!' Would that gush of affection fill our hearts again? or was it one of those joys which have no renewal in this world of change?

"As I approached Stoketon Moat, and saw the dear old house with its clustered chimneys, its quaint oriels and deeply-mullioned windows shining in the sun, and half-hidden by dark-green ivy, flowering clematis, and fragrant jasmine, I lifted my hat, and inspired by the memory of all the terrors and hardships I had undergone, exclaimed in a low voice—

"'My God—I thank Thee for this day!'

"Is it blasphemy—oh, I hope not—to say that I had little perhaps to be thankful for in having escaped the perils of Maharajpore, and survived my sufferings among the mountains of Tattah and Beloochistan?

"The house was occupied by strangers, who viewed me with coldness and mistrusted my appearance of agitation.

"'Lady Singleton had died three years ago—Mr. Vane's people they knew nothing about—had never even heard of them,' I was informed by a sleek and well fed butler, who was about to close the door in my face—the door of the house that was once my home.

"'Are any of Dr. Riversdale's family in the neighbourhood?' I inquired anxiously.

"'Yes; the doctor has resided at his father's house since the old gentleman died about a year ago.'

"'Thanks,' said I, and turned wearily away, and conscious that I was a source of vulgar speculation to the menials of the strange family now occupying what, as I have said, was once my home, I passed down the old and well-known avenue to issue out upon the highway that led to Warrington.

"Riversdale, I learned from the lodge-keeper, had retired upon half-pay, and had now an extensive practice in the neighbourhood. From him, then, I should perhaps learn all, and a few minutes' brisk walking brought me to his villa, a handsome new house, embosomed among some fine old trees.

"'Doctor Riversdale is always visiting his patients at this hour,' the servant informed me; 'but Mrs. Riversdale is at home,' she added, ushering me into a drawing-room, the splendour of which seemed wondrous to me after my sojourn among the sordid tents of Ali Khan.

"'I have no card,' said I, having omitted to provide myself with such a luxury, or forgotten all about such things, 'and the lady cannot know me: but say an old brother officer of the doctor is anxious to see her.'

"'Why did I become a soldier?' thought I, while surveying the comforts of Riversdale's home, and seeing his children. I had no doubt they were his; two boys and a girl, fair-haired little things, gambolling on the lawn in the sunshine; and all the inclination for what Jean Paul Richter calls 'cottage smoke and sitting-still-comfort' came over me. Thus might mine have been merry among the Stoketon woods! Oh, the years I have lost—years of love and joy with Isabel!

"Escaping from her brothers, the little girl toddled through the drawing-room window, which opened in the French fashion down to the floor; and then impelled, I know not by what secret impulse, I drew her towards me and kissed her so tenderly on the forehead, that she shrank back abashed and eyed me dubiously, for I was tanned to almost negro blackness, had a bushy beard, together with what must have seemed to her the eyes of an ogre—the eyes of one who for fully seven years, had been daily face to face with Death!

"Just as the poor child shrunk from me, the drawing-room door opened, and there entered a lady who bowed with a well bred smile of inquiry and paused, surveying me earnestly.

"Though more matronly in form, and a trifle rounder perhaps, her face was still that of Isabel, the girl I had left behind me. Womanly and thoughtful, her eyes were as sparkling and inquiring as of old, but animated by wonder now and inexpressible tenderness (for my aspect seemed so war-worn), till suddenly tears and terror filled them as they gazed into mine. The mouth, so exquisitely cut, was full and fine, till it quivered and blanched, while the skin of her delicate face was smooth as the lining of a white and pink shell.

"'Isabel,' I exclaimed, and opened my arms; but shrinking back, she uttered a wild cry of anguish and despair, and sank on a sofa, half fainting, and holding up her hands, deprecatingly, between herself and me. 'Touch me not,' was what her mute gesture seemed to say.

"I then perceived that she had two plain hoops upon her wedding finger.

"Two?

"I dared not approach, but stood bewildered as if rooted to the carpet, for now I saw it all—I saw it all; and that a great and terrible grief was about to come upon me!

"She was the wife of Robert Riversdale!

"We stood apart, she shrinking and I doubting. Oh! was this the meeting—this the moment—for which I had longed and yearned, and thirsted, amid the protracted misery of the years that were past? Gasping, she gazed at me, while she did so, clutching wildly the cushions of the sofa; and there was an expression of unutterable bewilderment, of keen intensity, in her eyes.

"'Oh, merciful Heaven! Conyers Singleton, can this be you?' she exclaimed, in a low voice, like a wail.

"There was no embrace between us—no gladness, but only intolerable fear in both our hearts; we did not even shake hands, and she was my wife!

"'Oh, Isabel, and is it so? while I, after all those years that I have been a prisoner of war, a hunted fugitive, a wretched Christian slave, chained by the leg to a field-piece, among people whose faces and voices were to me but as those of wild animals—is it thus we meet and thus you greet me?' I said, mournfully. 'Isabel, what weariness of the world is in my heart—speak, or I shall fall at your feet!'

"Indeed, the room seemed to whirl round me, and I clung to the marble mantelpiece for support.

"'You seem to have come back as it were from the grave to reproach me; yet, oh, Conyers! I have nothing to reproach myself with,' she replied, speaking with great difficulty, while she placed a hand upon her heart as if to stay its wild beating, and a ghastly whiteness blanched all her beautiful face. 'The misery of this meeting is known only to—to God and me.'

"'And you have in my absence given to another your heart, your affection, which I deemed my own—for life, you once said?'

"'Reproach me not; all the world told me you were dead. I read the Gazette myself, and but too keenly remember, even at this hour, the agony of that in which I saw your name as among the killed. My hand, in time, was given to another.'

"'To Riversdale?'

"'To Riversdale; but my heart never—never. Oh, I shall go mad!' She began to speak wildly and incoherently, and then added, 'In those dear past days I loved you and you only—oh, yes, I loved you then so dearly, so truly, Conyers!'

"'And now, Isabel!'

"'I love you still, dearest Conyers, but that love will turn my brain. My little child—our little child, Conyers,' she added, with moving pathos in her voice and eyes, 'was dead; Lyla and Katie were about to be married. I had no one to love, and no tie seemed to bind me to you, but sad, sad memory. Oh, what shall I say? how explain myself? A mother—a wife, and yet no wife! Riversdale loved me before I saw you, Conyers.'

"'Nay, not before your girlhood.'

"'Before your return from Ghuznee; but that pleads nothing, I am aware, for I loved you then and you only.'

"'And since, Isabel—since?'

"'Alas! do not question me—and yet you must.'

"'Surely some little explanation is due to me?' said I, with the forced calmness of settled despair. 'Oh that I had never returned from Ghuznee or learned to love you; or would to God that He had permitted me to perish at Maharajpore?'

"'I was lonely and helpless, Conyers—oh, so lonely and helpless in my supposed widowhood,' said she, making a great effort to speak, for voice and sense seemed alike to be failing her. 'I respected the long-tried affection of Riversdale, which had survived even my marriage with you. He told me that he owed his life on that fatal field to you. Oh, how I mourned for you and how I loved your memory are known only to myself and One with whom there can be no secrets, and who knows all things! Could I help myself? and now—now—NOW,' she exclaimed, while casting her eyes despairingly to Heaven, and striking her hands together, 'am I to be torn from my children—his children, his and mine—even from the little helpless baby in its berceaunette!'

"'Not by me, Isabel,' said I, while on my aching heart those piercing words fell like drops of molten lead; 'not by me. I shall go forth again to seek death more surely now, and cross your path no more. One kiss—only one kiss—even he could not refuse me that, and then never again shall we meet on this side of the grave.'

"We both sobbed bitterly as I took one brief but passionate embrace. I laid her gently on the sofa and rang the bell, because she had fainted. Then I quitted the house of Riversdale never to enter it again!

"To me it seemed that I must be in a dream from which I should surely waken. The sun was shining in all the glory of a summer noontide on the green woodlands and greener meadows, but I felt no warmth in its rays, and my teeth chattered as I walked on, I knew not, cared not whither. So ended this terrible meeting—this interview of agony.

"I felt as one who was enveloped in the horror of a great and sudden darkness—one who had gone from the world itself, into the cold shadow of death.

"I have but little more to tell you now. Believing that I was dead, my aunt, Lady Singleton, on the death of my infant boy, bequeathed all she possessed to charitable institutions; and I cared not to dispute her will, for a few months after saw me again in India, and face to face with the hard fighting Sikhs at Chillianwallah. I strove hard to throw my life away; but it seemed to be charmed now. I never received a scratch, nor has bullet or blade been near me since the day of Maharajpore.

"A few weeks after our victory over the Sikhs, I read the death of Isabel in the Times, and then I knew that my interview with her, and the intolerable mental agony consequent to the falsehood of her position, had destroyed her! My poor Isabel!

"We were then on the march for Goojerat, and none of my comrades knew why in that battle, and for many a day long after it, the hilt of my sword was covered with crape—the only mourning in which I dared indulge, for the miserable fate of the girl I had left behind me."